What's The Score

When we play football we keep score; when we play golf we count the
strokes. This is the game of life. We need to keep score so we can
celebrate the "wins" and learn from the "losses."

Many of us set goals and celebrate when we reach them. In between those
times, many of us have no idea how we're doing. If your goal is to have a
new home by the end of 2005, do you know how far you are from that goal?
It would be helpful to have a progress chart for things like cash in the
bank, credit rating, and even income to debt ratio. Keeping a record helps
you quickly compare actual and planned progress. It leads to choices in
what to do about the gaps, the distance from where you are now to where
you planned to be at this time.

If you are not keeping score, this is a good time to find a baseline.
What's the current situation, your line of scrimmage?

You have a goal

You have developed a plan of action

You know what resources your have

You know the critical success factors, things that must occur or that
you must have to succeed.

The object is to move forward from that baseline position. If something
interrupts your progress, you will need to evaluate what went wrong and
perhaps make some adjustments.

To do this you need to know where the goal line is. What is victory? Does
close count? The goal line is your desired outcome, that new house in
2005. It is specific and it is time bounded. The goal line may change over
time, however.

You may decide that you can afford a more expensive house than you first
thought. Your choices may revolve around what to do with the extra money,
buy more lavish furnishings or more square feet.

By keeping score, you can decide what adjustments you want to make. If
you're ahead of where you had planned to be, you may want to coast and
take a vacation. If you are not as far ahead as you had planned, you have
other choices. Do you work harder or extend the time line; say, move it
out to the end of 2006? There may be other options like taking on a second
job or reducing the size of the house you had planned.